One man's journey that Coatesville can be proud to talk about

The city of Coatesville, many people agree, has its share of bad news — witness the furor that was created when trusted and respected members of the Coatesville Area School District, including the superintendent, were caught exchanging racially and sexually inflammatory text messages on district-owned cell phones.

What the city needs is the kind of story that Daily Local News writer Gene Morris treated us to recently when he visited with boxer Calvin Grove, who made it from the streets in the shadow of the aging Lukens Steel mills to the foreign sights of France, where he won the IBF world featherweight championship in 1988. As Morris put it, Grove’s story is not one about a clichéd old boxer, broke and broken down, battling his demons. Rather, it is of a “silky smooth” middle-aged man imparting whatever athletic and life wisdom he can to young men who climb into the ring with him.

Morris caught up with Grove recently at a gym in Phoenixville. He found Grove healthy, a father of four and grandfather of two, packing 145 pounds onto his solid 5-foot-8 frame, only about 20 pounds above his prime boxing weight. He still lives in Coatesville, has worked road construction jobs since retiring in 1998, and spends as much time as possible training young boxers in Jimmy Deoria’s Police Athletic League boxing program.

In addition to teaching eager kids how to slip an overhand right — and occasionally showing them he still has impressive ring skills — Grove spreads a straight-and-narrow message that far supersedes boxing. “I tell them all the time to stay away from drugs,” he said. “Drugs will put you in jail or in the graveyard. But it’s hard for kids now, with drugs, guns and everything.

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“I want them to accept responsibility. I say to them, ‘You don’t see a lion hanging out with a bear.’ Lions hang with lions. Bears hang with bears. These kids need to hang with the right people, the ones who aren’t going to get them into trouble. And most of all, stay away from the ones selling drugs. I’ve seen too many people go down from drugs.”

Grove, Morris wrote, touted boxing as an ideal way for youngsters to learn discipline and stay off the streets. He lamented that there weren’t more boxing opportunities for kids in Coatesville and elsewhere.

It’s a well-documented story that Grove fought often in Coatesville’s streets before his late cousin, George “Bunky” Grove, took him to a boxing gym in Kennett Square. Calvin was just 14 at the time and initially took a beating from more experienced opponents, but it was the starting point to an eventual world championship.

A quarter-century after winning the title, Grove said he runs 40 miles a week to keep in shape, and enjoys stepping back into the ring.

“I’ve never really left boxing,” he said. “But now it’s like I’m the teacher versus the students. I show them tapes of my fights. The plan is to hit and don’t be hit. I always felt like if an opponent was going to hit me, he’d have to earn it.”

Good luck, Mr. Grove, and let us know if you hear of any stories as heartwarming as your own.